New habits and useful landmines

This article's advice on “installing” a new habit is really
quite good, but it's also useful just for its inspiring examples
of what Danny and I have called “useful landmines”-pre-emptive
ways to make failure in a given situation as difficult
as possible. A few I especially liked:

You want to start carrying a bit of cash and not
using your credit card.

Make it hard to do. Freeze your credit card in a block of
ice.

You want to walk the stairs at work but keep
taking the elevator.

Make it hard not to do. Tell everyone at work and ask
them to say 'booooo' to you if they see you in the lift.
Don't worry they won't ever have to be embarrassed to say it,
because you won't get in the lift if you did.

You want to move more, your [sic] annoyed at your
inactivity.

Make it easier to do. Take your TV remote to work and
leave it there.

You want the habit of waking up 20 minutes
earlier but keep pushing the alarm snooze.

Make it hard to stay in bed. Move the alarm, set the
lights on a timer, set the TV on a timer.

As with things like The Forehead Ticket Trick, I know a lot of folks find it
easy to laugh this stuff off and think it's all sort of dopey for
such theoretically sophisticated customers like you and me to
spend time on (“Just do it,” says the ambitious poster).
But, personally, I'm attracted to any idea that takes a burden
off of my mind and puts it squarely back into the physical
world.

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